ASBMB Today Science Cells beat stress — so can you!

Annual Meeting

Cells beat stress — so can you!

A 2022 annual meeting session on organelles

By Jeffrey I. Brodsky and Elizabeth Vierling

Sept. 28, 2021

Organisms can’t avoid stress, so it is not surprising that numerous cellular mechanisms have evolved to temper any toxic effects of stress. Stress responses are triggered within every cellular compartment to activate downstream signaling pathways. Distinct stress responses can lead to production of protective molecular chaperones, alter post-translational modifications and protein trafficking, activate pathways that degrade macromolecules, and change cellular and organellar function and architecture. Together, these responses maintain organelle and cellular homeostasis and, more specifically, protein homeostasis, also known as proteostasis.

Studies in model systems have uncovered the circuits that control these varied responses, the components that mediate cellular protection, and how disruption or changes in the efficacy of these responses can be linked to specific diseases. Speakers will describe, at the molecular level, how cellular and organelle homeostasis is maintained under normal conditions and when cells and organisms encounter stress.

Keywords: protein quality control, organelles, stress responses, heat shock proteins, endoplasmic reticulum–associated degradation, autophagy, unfolded protein response

Who should attend: everyone interested in the diverse mechanisms by which cells cope with stress related to environmental or disease insults, including how different cellular compartments signal stress or respond to restore cellular homeostasis

Theme song: “Under pressure” by David Bowie and Queen

This session is powered by stressed-out cells and organelles.

Talks

The degradation of misfolded proteins in the ER — Jeffrey Brodsky, University of Pittsburgh
Post-translational control of HMG CoA reductase, the rate-limiting enzyme of cholesterol synthesis— Russell DeBose–Boyd, University of Texas Southwest Medical Center
Signaling principles, signal decoding and integration revealed by stress — Diego Acosta-Alver, University of California, Santa Barbara
The role of rhomboid pseudoproteases in ERADicating misfolded membrane substrates — Sonya Neal, University of California, San Diego
Mechanisms of membrane protein sorting — Sichen (Susan) Shao, Harvard Medical School
Peroxisomal quality control in Arabidopsis — Bonnie Bartel, Rice University
Mitochondrial-derived compartments protect cells from nutrient stress — Adam Hughes, University of Utah
Regulation of mitochondrial genome synthesis in animal cells — Samantha Lewis, University of California, Berkeley
Mechanisms of stress granule regulation by ribosome-associated quality control factors — Stephanie Moon, University of Michigan
Control of translation by ubiquitin during oxidative stress — Gustavo Silva, Duke University
Proteins directing lipid fluxes at the ER–lipid droplet continuum — Elina Ikonen, University of Helsinki
The interconnected dynamics of ribonucleoprotein condensates and the endoplasmic reticulum — Jason Lee, Baylor College of Medicine

Learn more

Check out all ten thematic symposia planned for the 2022 ASBMB annual meeting:

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Jeffrey I. Brodsky

Jeffrey Brodsky is a professor and the director of the Center for Protein Conformational Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh, where his laboratory studies how endoplasmic reticulum homeostasis is maintained and, in turn, disrupted in various disease states.

Elizabeth Vierling

Elizabeth Vierling is a distinguished professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who focuses on proteins that mitigate stress in plants, including molecular chaperones, mediators of nitric oxide homeostasis and mitochondrial proteins that alter stress responses.

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